Your Thoughts Are Not Real

Your thoughts, and the stories they produce, are not real, simply because they come and go, and what is real—you, existing here now—is always present.

You thoughts may, however, be true.

You have a story—a collection of thoughts—to describe what you were doing in the hour before you read this. If your story is accurate, then it’s a true story. But no matter how true a story is—about what happened to you or someone else, or what you did yesterday or two weeks ago—it is still not real. It is just a story, a memory, and maybe even a fabrication, something you imagined to be true.

What is real is what is actually here, right now. It exists right now. It can be perceived by the senses right now—for example an event that is happening now, such as the sun shining through your window, or the rain pouring down outside, or an emotion or a sensation that you are feeling in this moment.

This level of reality, what is happening now, I call the “relative reality,” or the “small r” (as in lower case) reality. It is marked by the distinction that while it can be perceived by the senses—i.e. it can be seen, felt, touched, tasted, or smelled—it too, like thoughts and concepts themselves, changes, comes and goes.

In fact, when you really contemplate it, literally everything is governed by the law of change. Everything. Your body has changed. You’re older, you’re physically different; maybe you even have more lines and wrinkles on your face. You thoughts, sensations, feelings, and emotions are always changing. Even your beliefs change, unless you are inclined to fundamentalism, and adhere to a particular belief to the extent you take it as the gospel truth. Certainly your relationships and friendships have changed over the years. And circumstances and events are changing all the time…

So, is there anything that doesn’t change? Yes, there is one “thing” that doesn’t change, that is constant, timeless, and ever-present—in a word, changeless. And what is that? You. Who and what you most essentially are does not change. Or, more correctly, the awareness that you are, the awareness that you exist, does not change.

Getting Free of the Victim Story

A victim, in the most dramatic case, is someone who tells their story of loss and suffering over and over again to anyone who will listen. Not coincidentally, there is usually a lot of “drama” in their story. They may be a victim of some recent circumstance, or of a long-ago situation, such as something that happened in their childhood.

But drama is something that is best left to the pages of a novel, or a cinema or television screen, or a stage play, or a sporting event. If your aim in life is to realize the truth of happiness within, then you have to see that any “drama” that may exist in your life is because of your perception of things—the thoughts and stories you tell yourself.

The more you realize you are not your thoughts or stories, but rather the ever-present, conscious individual in which the thoughts and stories arise and disappear, the freer you will be of any personal drama. Then you’ll live, basically every moment, in the ease, harmony, and flow of your true nature.

The Power of Curiosity

The more you do the simple practice of closing your eyes, taking a deep, slow breath, and imaging yourself as empty space, the more you realize that you are not your thoughts, but that you are still here. Then these deeper, unconscious thoughts will have room to surface in you. They will likely trigger old feelings of anxiety, fear, shame, guilt, anger, resentment, sadness, or some other form of unease, of suffering.

Then you have to be really present with these feelings, this deeper angst. You have to be very alert, watchful, almost like a scientist in your curiosity to discover what is true in you. Past memories, usually of something traumatic that happened long ago in childhood, may arise.

When they do, you must learn to welcome them because they are showing you where you are not free, where you are not abiding in the happiness that is your true nature. So, the secret is to learn to welcome them, accept them, embrace them—and then see that they are not real either!

They may certainly have once been true—after all, the traumatic event, whether it was getting separated from your mother in the store, or being molested by a relative, did happen—but the memory or story is not true now. It is only a thought, a story, which has surfaced from the past into your conscious mind.

The more aware you are of that thought, the more deeply and slowly you breathe, and consciously be present with it—and actually see it arising within your inner visual field—the more it dissolves, and you find yourself experiencing a deeper level of release, of letting go. The old emotion triggered by the memory unwinds, releases, and you find yourself relaxing more into the present. You experience more ease, more inner harmony. You can see and think more clearly.

How Free Are You?

Mental conflict and emotional struggle, or suffering, arise directly from dualistic thinking, from believing that there is a perceiver—this “I” or “me” that you take yourself to be—and the perceived, the situations, problems, and challenges in your life.

But in reality there is only ever perceiving, the flowing with and responding calmly, intelligently, and creatively to whatever’s before you. This is the nondual truth of life. When you look within you will not be able to find the perceiver, this “I” or “me” you think you are. This discovery, or realization, results over time in awakening—the “Ah ha!” moment that finally liberates you, and frees you to be the beautiful, wise, and loving person you really are. Then you are always present, always here, now.

Embodying this realization, using the power of your mind and imagination to attract what you want in your life and, above all, connecting and sharing with others—seeing them as beautiful and already awake—then becomes your life-long work and purpose.